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On the 30th of July he sent the Hereditary Prince, with a force of ten thousand men, to make a circuit and fall upon Gohfeld, ten miles up the Weser; and so cut the line by which Contades brought up the food for his army from Cassel, seventy miles to the south. Such a movement would compel the French either to fight or to fall back.
The year which marked the lowest point of Frederick's fortunes was the year of Pitt's greatest triumphs, the year of Minden and Quiberon and Quebec. France aimed both at a descent upon England and at the conquest of Hanover; for the one purpose she gathered a naval armament at Brest, while fifty thousand men under Contades and Broglie united for the other on the Weser.
During the night Contades crossed, by nineteen bridges that he had thrown across the Bastau; while at the same time Broglio crossed the Weser, by the bridge of the town, and took up his position facing the Prussian left wing, which rested on the village of Todtenhausen, intending to attack him early in the morning, and to finish before the duke could bring the centre to his assistance.
"On the 12,000 English, Soubise had attempted nothing. And did you ever see such horses, such splendor of equipment, regardless of expense? "Contades had not failed, in the mean while, to follow with the main Army; and was now elaborately manoeuvring about; intent to have Lippstadt, or some Fortress in those Rhine-Weser Countries.
Clermont was recalled, and was succeeded by Contades, another incapable. One of his subordinates won for him the battle; of Lutterberg; but the generalship of Ferdinand made it a barren victory, and the campaign remained a success for the English.
They were the 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 37th and 51st. Some regiments of Hanoverians were in line behind them. The British cavalry were on the duke's right. The morning was misty, and it was not until eight o'clock that both sides were ready, and indeed even then Contades' infantry was not finally settled in its position.
Ferdinand persists in sticking by Minden neighborhood, and, in a scarcely accountable way, manoeuvring there, shooting out therefrom what mischief he can upon the various Contades people in their sieges and the like. "On Contades himself he can pretend to do nothing, except hoodwink him, entice him out, and try to get a chance on him.
Broglio's force of twenty thousand men was on the east side of the Weser, and Ferdinand was unable to move to strike a blow at the detached force of Contades; for had he done so, Broglio would have captured the city of Hanover, which lay perfectly open to him within a day's march.
While great part of the allied army remained in cantonments about Munster, the French armies on the Upper and Lower Rhine, being put in motion, joined on the third day of June near Marburgh, under the command of the mareschal de Contades, who advanced to the northward, and fixed his head-quarters at Corbach, from whence he detached a body of light troops to take possession of Cassel, which, at his approach, was abandoned by general Imhoff.
Soubise, Maillebois, Contades, Broglie, and Clermont were but weak successors of Condé, Turenne, Vendôme, and Villars. Marshal Richelieu was supreme in the arts of gallantry, and more famous for conquests of love than of war. The best generals of Louis XV. were foreigners.
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